Circularity: Repurposing Excess Chemicals for Global Manufacturer

Multi-million-dollar opportunities: how a chemicals raw materials manufacturer discovered dozens of untapped commercial applications of its products.

The Challenge

Repurposing, a.k.a organic growth opportunities scan, is aimed at identifying potential new or adjacent business opportunities, based on the current company’s assets - products, materials, or raw materials.

With little-to-none investment, a global chemical manufacturer was looking to reevaluate where waste is most prevalent, discover how to extract more value from its bromine compound, and streamline circular innovation across its value chain. By using the Research Studio, the company sought to identify potential novel application areas to fill the company’s R&D pipeline and create new commercial streams.

In synthesizing information drawn from billions of web pages, including scientific articles, patents, and news, the manufacturer could explore untapped commercial opportunities, new markets, and applications for existing products by repurposing circular products, components, and materials. 

The platform's iterative machine-learning-assisted design processes allow for rapid prototyping and testing, and help navigate the delicate risk-reward balance of repurposing opportunities.

The Approach

At first, a number of approaches were explored.

Direct applicability (sometimes referred to as ‘prior-art blind spots’, which is a subsection since it targets IP-based opportunities
This covers all potential use-cases based on what current products/raw materials are already stated to be used for/ could be used for.

Property based approach
This focuses on the properties of a material/product, scans for its usages, then reveals connections between those findings. 

Substitutes analysis
This focuses on known materials/products that compete with current products - scan for their usages  

Domain-focused approach
What potential opportunities lie in a specific sector of interest?

Adjacencies
What are some potential applications? Products which, by some adaptations, could be served by current assets as well?

The platform's unbiased machine-generated findings connected previously unconnected dots and unrelated domains. By analyzing >100M web-pages, it revealed >10,000 applications for the organization's bromine compound.

Out of these applications, dozens were validated by a joint task force, and 25% of applications were novel and unknown to the client, requiring further analysis.

The Results

Dozens of applications were identified, each with a  potential revenue range of $50M-$500M.

The revenue potential of just one application is estimated at >$150M.

Vetted applications were presented as part of a holistic evaluation report with evidence supporting:

  • the documented usage of the inspected application, deficiencies and composite information
  • its commercial feasibility, including relevant trends and market size indications

Features

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Root-Cause
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